Around the World in 80 Books

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of our World Eco-fiction Series, I present "Around the World in 80 Books: A Guide to Ecological and Climate Themes in Fiction," an article at Medium.com. Themes include harsh survival, advocacy, veneration of the world around us, the slow apocalypse, the haunted, the weird, and the psychological. It's an eclectic and diverse range of stories, set around the world, on every continent. Also, Dragonfly is blending the original spotlight on climate change authors with the newer world fiction series, now that these similar author spotlights are on the same domain.

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Cli-Fidelity, Peter Romilly

Set in 2050, Cli-Fidelity is the sequel to 500 Parts Per Million, although the story can be read independently. It’s a tale of climate instability, a world where four people try to survive whatever the extreme weather throws at them. Prepare for a bumpy ride. Cli-Fidelity is a nuclear reactor with a difference – he’s underwater, tethered to the sea bed. He’s performed so well that the French government holds a special top-level conference to celebrate his twentieth birthday. But when Zeta Solek is invited on a promotional visit, she gets more than she bargained for, certainly not the group photo and commemorative DVD.

Cli-Fidelity is a nuclear reactor with a difference – he’s underwater, tethered to the sea bed. He’s performed so well that the French government holds a special top-level conference to celebrate his twentieth birthday. But when Zeta Solek is invited on a promotional visit, she gets more than she bargained for, certainly not the group photo and commemorative DVD.Her sister Dayna, a medical student on placement at Guy's Hospital London, also finds her life turned upside down, but in a very different way. She’d been hoping to meet up with her boyfriend Marc, but an overnight stay in the Tower, a sturdy skyscraper attached to the hospital, puts paid to all her plans.Thrown into this mix is Jules, a nuclear scientist with a curious obsession. He may be a scientist, but he has more than particle physics on his mind.Set in 2050, Cli-Fidelity is the sequel to 500 Parts Per Million, although the story can be read independently. It’s a tale of climate instability, a world where four people try to survive whatever the extreme weather throws at them. Prepare for a bumpy ride.

Quotes

Ursula Le Guin is so important, because she pushed the idea that science fiction, or speculative fiction, can be a space for being really thoughtful, and for really exploring ideas. And also for daring to imagine a version of us that is better—and, in some ways, worse—than our present selves. I think she was unmatched. She was a great novelist, and a great evangelist for the novel. Earthsea is a huge influence, as is The Dispossessed. –Marlon James